Spoiler alert: this recap launches after The Deuce airs on Sunday nights in the US on HBO. Do not read unless you have watched season two, episode five, which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday at 10pm.
Well done, Candy. I personally have some doubts over quite how different the artistic sex film Red Hot will be from your common or garden pornography, but I am not one to judge before seeing the work. Even then, you have to give Candy her due for securing the funding for the movie she wanted to make and the cast she wanted to star in it.
The star is Lori, who otherwise has had it rough. Her relationship with CC has been simmering for a while as her star rose in the porn industry and his influence continued to wane. It was always likely to end in violence and, upon his realising that Lori was hoping to establish a less abusive relationship with a new agent, CC set about beating her up.
Despite her decision to stay with CC, the agent invites Lori to her apartment for an audition. Lori soon bursts and lets all of her anger and frustration out on the older woman. “There is nothing about me that belongs to me, it all belongs to him,” she screams. Candy considers this an audition passed.
As for the money, well, that comes from Frankie. It’s all very easy; too easy, in fact. It’s like Candy taking from a baby. Her rationale is that Frankie should give her the money he got from selling his dry-cleaning business and be at peace with the possibility of never getting it back. Frankie is fine with that. Maybe it’s the doe eyes and curling of the finger through the hole in a chain fence that does it. Perhaps it’s the fact he gets to call himself a coproducer. Either way, it’s a quickly done deal. (Without even knowing it Frankie turns out to be a good producer, instinctively shaking down Big Mike for his money the next time he sees him.)
Unsurprisingly, the script Candy commissioned from the dude with the ponytail is a bit phallocentric and she commissions Harvey’s nutritionally studious girlfriend to do a rewrite. She also decides to go ahead with shooting despite failing to get the appropriate permits (I wonder if this might come back on her, perhaps in the form of Mr Goldman). In the final scene of the hour, a Scorsese-esque tracking shot follows Candy through her set to the clapperboard: act one, scene one, take one, action!
Back to Big Mike who it turns out has been having an affair with a transgender person who also turns out to be a decent source of easy pickings for armed robberies. Up until now, we have known very little indeed about Mike’s private life and proclivities, but over pillow talk we learn more. His girlfriend gives him the inside information on an uptown card game which carries a lot of cash and few weapons. Mike relays that information, first to Black Frankie (who also appears to know of Mike’s relationship) and then to Rudy Pipilo, who gives his blessing to the job and offers up a driver in exchange for his usual cut.
The job goes smoothly, bar a bit of overacting from Mike’s inside woman and some terrible driving on the way out. According to Rudy’s boy, Tommy, Mike and Frankie are quite “the crew” and their relationship with the mob looks likely only to strengthen over time.
This may happen even sooner than the duo expect if Bobby continues to get into trouble. After a death on his watch last week, this week he’s on TV, trying unsuccessfully to hide his face as Alston takes him away after a raid on his massage parlour.
The raid was quite the unique feat in that nobody on Bobby’s end got to hear about it before it happened. This is because the higher-ups, and not the lower downs (who are on the take from Bobby), were in charge of the information. The only people who were supposed to know were the mayor’s, namely Goldman. Alston will end up working with that man whether he likes it or not.
Thanks to Goldman tipping off his mates in the media, Bobby is in the spotlight. He insists to his wife, who has realised something about her husband that she would rather have kept suppressed, that he will be fine, bailed and protected from prison by his bosses. But that’s not something he would be wise to rely on. Bobby is running out of friends, with even Vincent inclined to agree with Abby that he should take his business somewhere other than the Hi Hat. It’s a strange day when Frankie is no longer the most problematic member of the Martino family.
Finally, this week, a quick mention for Darlene who is taking autodidacticism to higher levels each week. She is part of a night class, which I think is in English language and comprehension and says she hopes to pursue a career in communications. This may not be true, as she says it to the young man in her class who fancies her, but has not a clue as to the complete nature of her life. Like Lori, she is straining in her relationship with her pimp as she doubles up as a sex worker and a porn star. But, unlike Lori, Darlene still has affection for Larry. When her school friend asks her for a date, she turns him down.
Discotheque Bibliotheque
The film Larry watches and enjoys so much he memorises the lines on the way home is Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar. It was the Taxi Driver writer’s directorial debut and is notable for starring Richard Pryor in a serious role. Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel also make an appearance as we see in the clip.
Questions for next week
Will Paul’s ostentatious supper club ever see the light of day?
Is it love between Irene and Shay, or only infatuation?
And am I right? Is Bobby in trouble?
